Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Estonia

Estonian National Museum is a 100 years old ethnography museum, which opens its new building in 2015. This poses to museum wide range of challenges. For the Estonian National Museum the most important target is to expand the museum scope in society, by enlarging the participation of different communities and cultural groups of Estonia to museums activities. Via digital collection and collecting databases Estonian National Museum concentrates on cultural exchange, on the ways of how artefacts as well as knowledge are constantly (re)created, and on giving new contexts to artefacts by help of visitors and users of ethnographic collections.

The new models of collaboration that have been recently used in the Estonian National Museum (such as open curatorship exhibitions for young people, collection campaigns, oral history projects for the minority groups, documentation of everyday life etc.) to increase the active participation of people and communities in content creation.

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«Museums have the responsibility to deconstruct their historically situated assumptions, missions, metaphors, conventions and practices [...] however museums are still caught into different dichotomised narratives that are presented as objective “truths”. To name a few, I am referring to the tyranny of chronology (Pollock, 2002), the romantic discourse of the artists as a genius, the current thematic approach in exhibition design or the notion of heritage as a commodity. I am also referring to the culture wars between directors, curators, educators, administrators, evaluators and visitors. And here is when we could ask:

Why can’t museums include multiple perspectives in their research processes, exhibition or educational policies and practices? Why can’t they treat visitors as equal voices?»